Supreme Court Upholds Marriage Equality

Even with three newly appointed justices, the Supreme Court ruled not to roll back marriage equality. The court denied Indiana’s attempt to strip equal parenting rights from married, same-gender couples. The court’s decision ensures that same-gender parents in Indiana remain legal guardians of their own children, ending the state’s six-year-long crusade to remove parent’s names from their children’s birth certificates.

The case in question, Box v. Henderson, involved eight lesbian couples from the state of Indiana who conceived through artificial insemination. When hetero couples use this method of conception, the birth mother’s husband is listed on birth certificates as the father, not the sperm donor. When same-gender couples used a sperm donor, Indiana officials refused to identify the birth mother’s wife as the child’s second parent. Instead, they insisted that spouses go through a stepparent adoption, an invasive, lengthy, and expensive process.

In 2014, the lesbian couples sued the state, hoping to place both parent’s names on the birth certificates. A federal judge had sided with the plaintiffs in 2016; however, the state appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals, which, after a lengthy delay, affirmed the judge’s decision. The court noted that the Supreme Court had already settled this issue twice, both in Obergefell v. Hodges, and Pavan v. Smith.

In spite of these precedents, Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill appealed the lower court’s decision to the Supreme Court. Hill, a Republican, effectively sought to overturn Pavan v. Smith and roll back Obergefell v. Hodges by persuading the SCOTUS to allow states to resume discrimination against same-sex parents.

The case gave the Supreme Court’s new conservative majority an opportunity to begin chipping away at marriage equality. On Monday, December 14, however, the court declined to take up Indiana’s appeal, bringing the case to a close. While same-gender parent’s across the nation can take a collective sigh of relief, the fight is far from over. A case in Philadelphia regarding discrimination on the basis of religious freedom, of same-gender couples looking to adopt, may soon find its way to the Supreme Court.